phancy.com - horror reviews - MOH 2026

Primate



IMDb Info

Release Year: 2025
Runtime: 1h 32m
Country: USA, UK, Canada, Australia
Language: English, ASL
Genre Tags: Horror
Plot Summary: A group of friends' tropical vacation turns into a terrifying, primal tale of horror and survival.

Poster - Title Card


phancy.com rating:

phancy.com notes: For a supposedly lean and mean 90 minute movie, this felt punishingly long. I came prepared for Chimp Cujo, which did happen, but I was unprepared for how every moment of suspense was dragged out to near-comical length. It did not help that the characters were either unlikeable or had the personality of cardboard, and every plot beat was a cliche. I would've forgiven some of this if there were also nasty, gory kills, but it lacked in that department as well. (I honestly laughed out loud at the idiot falling off a cliff, and it was not played for laughs.) I truly do not understand the positive reviews.


Outside Reviews:

Clint Worthington
3 out of 4 stars - rogerebert.com

There’s an atavistic joy to be had in the January slasher—the kind of no-frills, all-chills gorefest that often comes around in the sleepy opening weeks of the year, when all the awards bait has exited theaters and audiences are starved for some empty calories. “Primate,” the latest from Johannes Roberts (“Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City“), is precisely that: lean, mean, and chimpanzee-n. It gets you in and out of the theater in less than 90 minutes, squirming in your seat and yelling at the screen. It’s a flimsy series of contrivances to get a shockingly realistic ape to rip the faces off of stupid human beings in increasingly creative ways. What more do you want, really?


Jesse Hassenger
Grade: B - A rabid chimp goes to town on people in the simple yet satisfying Primate

For a movie of exceeding simplicity, Primate manages to encapsulate more or less the entire deal of horror filmmaker Johannes Roberts in a single compact creature feature. Roberts isn’t even as big a name in horror as Osgood Perkins or Ti West, much less a minted mainstream auteur like Jordan Peele or Zach Cregger. Fans might not necessarily realize (or care) that the same guy directed a Strangers sequel, a Resident Evil reboot, and a pair of shark thrillers. But Primate makes a characteristically concise case for Roberts as a genre stylist to keep watching.